Most aggressors take stupid risks only when they feel they won't be stopped. The world seems to be falling apart. Only lunatics from North Korea or Iran once mumbled about using nuclear weapons against their supposed enemies. Now Vladimir Putin, after gobbling up the Crimea, points to his nuclear arsenal and warns the West not to “mess” with Russia. The Middle East terrorist group the Islamic State keeps beheading its captives and threatening the West. Meanwhile Obama admits to the world that we “don’t have a strategy yet” for dealing with such barbaric terrorists. Not long ago he compared them...

About seventeen years after the murder of John F. Kennedy, I was given the opportunity to watch an archived film of the President's last public remarks, a short speech to the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce, Friday morning, November 22, 1963.Having been impressed, I still remembered a line or two, and I briefly searched for what I hoped would be unedited footage. I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find what was to be found had been heavily edited.There may be better copies of his full remakrs out there, but I did finally stumble on one unedited whole tape with...

WASHINGTON -- The death of Fred Ikle last week inspires me to prophesy. Thus far, only the redoubtable Wall Street Journal has remarked on Fred's passing. That he was a formidable mind during the Cold War and important to the peaceful settlement of that decades-long struggle is remembered thanks to the Journal. Yet, to the rest of the media, he is a minor figure -- perhaps a menacing figure. We shall see what they say, but I am not holding my breath. This is the way liberalism creates the Kultursmog, which is to say, the politicized culture that surrounds us....

Two months after Camden, NJ, laid off 160 police officers, city prosecutors have released a sobering report showing a dramatic rise in violent crime in the drug-and-crime-ridden city of 80,000 residents. Aggravated assaults with firearms jumped 259 percent in January and February compared to last year, and violent crime over all is up 19 percent, the Camden County Prosecutor's Office told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Murders and robberies, however, were down for the period.

NATO needs to develop an anti-missile defence system as a deterrence, the alliance chief said Friday, while seeking to assure Moscow that the organisation posed no threat to Russia. "We must develop an effective missile defence," NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told an international conference in the Polish capital. "In the coming years we will probably face many more countries and possibly even some non-state actors armed with long-range missiles and nuclear capabilities," he said. Rasmussen also insisted later during a press conference that "a nuclear capability will remain an essential part of a credible deterrence in the future."...

(3rd LD) U.S. vows unlimited deterrence against N. Korea By Sam Kim SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Yonhap) -- The U.S. pledged Thursday to mobilize its warfighting assets to their maximum capacity if needed to defend South Korea against North Korea, which continues to develop its nuclear and missile capabilities. U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates "reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to provide extended deterrence for the ROK, using the full range of military capabilities, to include the U.S. nuclear umbrella, conventional strike, and missile capabilities," according to a joint statement with South Korean Defense Minister Kim Tae-young.

<p>Now that's deterrence.</p>
<p>Kennedy was pledging that if any nuke was launched from Cuba, the United States would not even bother with Cuba but go directly to the source and bring the apocalypse to Russia with a massive nuclear attack.</p>

America is at war? —no we are not. Don’t kid yourself. The U.S. Army is at war, the Marines are at war and other elements of our armed forces are at war. But are you at war? Do you feel like you are in a war? Is this war having any tangible effect on your day to day life? As a nation that claims to be at war we are in a grave position in it. America is strategically fixed...

High Frontier Strategic Issues Policy Brief July 14, 2006 “Six Scuds and a Dud” – Why should we care? By Henry F. Cooper 1 (Stanton Coalition Presentation) On Fox News Sunday, Brit Hume referred to North Korea’s intrusion on our July 4 celebration with their launch of “Six Scuds and a Dud,” and implied this was not a particularly significant event. I beg to differ. The Dud Problem First, the “dud,” their failed test of a Taepodong-2, involved a three stage rocket presumably intended to deliver a modern nuclear weapon to Hawaii, Alaska or the Northwestern continental United States. And...

The Energy Department has completed the first life extension on a 1960s-era nuclear bomb that is part of the Pentagon's strategic deterrent, a senior department official said yesterday. "Completing the B61 first production unit is an important step in keeping our nuclear weapons stockpile safe and reliable," said Tom D'Agostino, deputy administrator for defense programs at the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.

"The Iranian nuclear program crisis is currently presenting the greatest challenge to the national security strategy of the Bush Administration. Strategists, diplomats and policy makers are all hard at work trying to craft a course of action and an international coalition that will dissuade and/or prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons... So absent military action and the West’s acquiescence to a nuclear armed Iran, can Iran be deterred from proliferating nuclear weapons and associated technology? Can we be assured they won’t pass one to a proxy? The answer is no, at least as current US strategies are crafted..."

In the summer of 1963, a secret report handed to John F. Kennedy's White House generated colossal anxiety. The "Special National Intelligence Estimate," prepared by the CIA, found that Communist China was close to obtaining nuclear weapons. Yikes! The very idea of Mao Zedong and his band of Marxist-Leninist revolutionaries possessing nukes was enough to prompt the Kennedy squad to consider a pre-emptive military strike to take out China's weapons program. The American public, accustomed to sensationalist (and often blatantly racist) propaganda portraying the Chinese as "the Yellow Peril," might well have cheered such an assault. But the intelligence appraisal...

Zero tolerance could nip crime careers in the bud 14 March 2006 Several titillating newspaper columns have recently been devoted to bail rules, rising prisoner numbers, jails, and the lack of criminal rehabilitation. The killer of Hinewaoriki "Lillybing" Karaitiana-Matiaha boasts she is not reformed. Special pleaders push pet theories. However, no journalist seems game to tackle the cause of the growing problems faced by the police, the justice system, and the wider community that relies on their protection. Why do gangs fight openly in suburban streets and small towns? Why do the police fail to follow up on most burglaries...

WASHINGTON, March 30, 2006 – The old concept of mutually assured destruction -- the idea that a nuclear attack would have such devastating consequences that neither the United States nor its foes would dare launch one -- isn't enough of a deterrent in today's strategic environment, a senior defense official told Congress yesterday. "The new strategic environment requires new approaches to deterrence and defense," Peter Flory, assistant secretary for international security policy, told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee's strategic forces subcommittee. The country's strategic deterrence no longer rests simply on its ability to inflict devastating consequences on...

Fifty-one years ago today, in a speech before the Council on Foreign Relations, an influentual New York-based think tank, US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles outlined what became known as the policy of massive retaliation. He explained to his listeners that the US would no longer allow itself to be drawn into conventional regional conflicts such as the Korean War--or, for that matter, Vietnam--but would reserve the right to respond to Communist aggression with "massive rataliatory poser" applied at places and with means of its own choosing--or, in other words, nuclear weapons might be used directly against the Soviet...

A friend at State says there is a buzz at Foggy Bottom — low level, but growing — that maybe it would not be so bad if Iran went nuclear. After all, deterrence kept us free from nuclear conflict through the Cold War, and India and Pakistan haven’t pressed the big button yet. If the mullahs in Tehran get the bomb, so what? If they use it, we will destroy them. They know that; thus, they will not use it. In fact — so the buzz goes — a nuclear Iran might help stabilize the region — Tehran and Tel...

Executive Summary: A nuclear Iran constitutes a serious threat, not only to the Middle East, but also to the entire world. Diplomatic efforts have failed to halt Iran’s nuclear program. As the Iranian acquisition of a military nuclear ability nears, the threat of using force, and even the actual use of force, seem to be the only viable preventive measures. Israel cannot live in a nuclear 'balance of terror' with Iran. Military action against Iranian nuclear installations has many risks and is complicated, but the difficulty is exaggerated, and inaction is bound to bring about far worse consequences.IntroductionIran is growing closer every...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 14, 2005 – Deterring countries or groups who can or want to attack the United States is still a viable strategy in the 21st century, even as the nature of defense challenges broadens and moves to areas outside U.S. expertise, a top Defense Department official said here today. Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, delivered opening remarks at the Fletcher Institute for Foreign Policy and Analysis Conference. The United States historically has dealt with traditional threats, such as nation states that have large armies and engage in combat operations, Henry said. But more threats are...

Misunderstandings over "deterrence" are greatly damaging U.S. foreign policy and national security. Deterrence is based upon fear. We deter someone from an action against us by instilling fear of the consequences. To be effective, our threat of deterrence must be credible. Our adversary must absolutely believe we will carry out our threat. In the case of nuclear deterrence -- since the stakes are so high -- he must be confident the consequences for him will be intolerable; that we will destroy all he holds dear; that we will do so rapidly and devastatingly; and that the loss to him will...

WASHINGTON: A Republican congressman said in a radio interview aired by a Florida station that if a multiple-city attack happened in the United States in the next 90 days, as predicted by an Israeli expert, and was found to be the work of extremist Muslims, then “we should take out their holy sites.” Congressman Thomas G Tancredo, Republican from Colorado, was being interviewed by AM 540 WFLA radio host Pat Campbell, who asked him what the response of the United States should be were terrorist attacks on US cities to take place and were attributable to extremist Muslims. The Congressman...

Live-fire training begins at controversial new Camp Hansen range By Chiyomi Sumida and Fred Zimmerman, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Friday, July 15, 2005 CAMP FOSTER, Okinawa — The U.S. Army began live-fire training Tuesday at a newly built urban-warfare complex on Camp Hansen, drawing strong protests from local officials and residents. Okinawa Gov. Keiichi Inamine criticized the military and Tokyo government, which gave its consent to the training at Range 4, located about 328 yards from the Igei community of Kin. “What it means to forcibly conduct the training without ensuring safety of residents is that the Japanese government,...

He is the author of: "Are Plans in Place if Schools attacked?" "Proliferation Terror Time for a New Deterrence Strategy" http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/breaking2453439.html "Does al Qaida have nukes?" http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44251 This program will restream every 2hrs from 1006 EST until Monday morning, listen at your convenience.

In reading Letters to the Editor in many newspapers, I find that there are many people who try to compare the Terrorist war with WWII and want us to treat captured terrorists the same way we treated German POWs in the 40s. As a WWII combat veteran, I can state that with all previous wars, we had national, uniformed nations fighting each other. Even with bombings, civilians had sufficient warnings so that they could escape to bomb shelters whether in London or Berlin. Prisoners of war were treated with the Geneva accords in mind. Today none of this “gentlemen’s war”...

“If you are a state sponsor of terror, with or without a WMD research base; or are an avowed enemy of the U.S., and you have a public policy that espouses the hope and bent for the destruction of the U.S.; you clandestinely proliferate (buy or sell) WMD technologies outside international agreements and inspection regimes, then you are subject to being immediately held strategically culpable should there be a catastrophic WMD event inside the U.S.."

All the critics of the Bush Strategy have it wrong, the basic strategy is sound; where it needs to be strengthened is in the area of deterrence. The Bush strategy statements in Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction really fail to warn others, whether they are friend or foe, from proliferating technologies to second or third parties that may result in a catastrophic event on U.S. soil. Needless to say a nuclear detonation in a major U.S. city would have incalculable, far-ranging global reverberations beyond the direct physical destruction. Therefore, what is required is a new statement of U.S. proliferation deterrence...

I don't know about the rest of America, but as a former intelligence analyst, what we don't know right now about nuclear proliferation in the world scares the hell out of me. Let's review just some of the news reports over the last several weeks... Many have probably heard of A.Q. Khan... Osama Bin Laden who has already declared it a Muslim duty to acquire nuclear weapons, recently received a Fatwa, or religious declaration, approving his use of one.... CIA Director Porter Goss... "It may be only a matter of time before al-Qaida or other groups attempt to use chemical,...

Back in the days of the Cold War, the U.S. had a nuclear-weapons doctrine called Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD for short. This doctrine held that if the U.S. were attacked with weapons of mass destruction, or WMD, we would immediately and without debate counter-attack the homeland of the perpetrator in such a way and with such overwhelming nuclear force as to make the cost of the initial attack too much to bear. For instance, if the Soviet Union or the Chinese would have attacked us with WMD in the Cold War, we would have counter-attacked at the very least...

"Yossef Bodansky, the former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and a man I respect immensely for his intelligence insights, says the United States faces an "inevitable" al-Qaida attack with weapons of mass destruction. "What would be the U.S. response to such an attack? "Now is the time to think about the unthinkable. "Contingency plans need to be made. And those plans, at least some of them, need to be known to the whole world to serve as a deterrent against such an attack. …" "… * The Islamist world and its allies need to know there...

Moammar Gadhafi has proclaimed[1] that Libya will disclose and abandon plans to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. This deal, which could lift United Nations sanctions and allow Libya to purchase and arm with conventional weapons, namely, missiles, aircraft, tanks, etc., was negotiated by the British. Guess who will be first in line to sell these conventional weapons to Gadhafi? Clearly, eliminating NBC (Nuclear, Biological and Chemical) weapons held by rogue nations is all to the good. Except that Libya has never been known to successfully develop such materials internally - so far. They always tried to purchase finished, ready-to-go...

Japan has asked the United States to maintain its 'nuclear card' in negotiations with North Korea in a bid to prevent Pyongyang from using nuclear weapons against Japan, a newspaper report said Friday. A US promise not to use nuclear weapons against North Korea would plunge Japan's security into great danger if six-nation talks fail to stop Pyongyang's nuclear drive, the mass-circulation Yomiuri newspaper said. Mitoji Yabunaka, head of the Japanese foreign ministry's Asian and Oceanian affairs bureau, conveyed the request to US Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs James Kelly in Washington last week,...

SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea (news - web sites) threatened on Monday to build nuclear weapons as a deterrent to what it calls a "hostile" U.S. policy — the communist government's first public declaration of its nuclear ambitions. AP Photo The statement marked a sharpening of the North's tone in its standoff with Washington. U.S. officials say the North Koreans told them privately that the country already has nuclear bombs and plans to build more — but until now Pyongyang had not openly stated its intention to develop an arsenal. "If the U.S. keeps threatening the DPRK with...

Summary: It may not be possible to deter fanatical terrorists, but members of terrorist systems may be amenable to influence. The U.S. counterterrorism strategy should therefore include political warfare, placing at risk things the terrorists hold dear, a credible threat of force against states or groups that support acquisition of weapons of mass destruction, and maintaining cooperation with other nations engaged in the war on terror, while also preserving core American values. The research described in this report was sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. All contents below are free, downloadable PDF files. (go to the link to...

Some Say Deterrence Is Enough… …but two can play at the deterrence game. By Saddam Hussein Dear Madam President Clinton: As you may have gathered by now, the nuclear device exploded over the Nevada desert today came from the mighty arsenal of the Republic of Iraq. We sincerely hope that the device did not injure anyone; its purpose was simply to show that Iraq has acquired a nuclear capability. In fact, we are proud to say that we have manufactured many such weapons. Nearly a dozen of them are now in place in major American cities. We certainly do not...

What would happen if we woke up one day to find that a nuclear bomb had destroyed the heart of Washington, D.C.? Over 100,000 would be dead. The White House, Congress, the offices of the Cabinet, museums, and precious and irreplaceable historic monuments, would all be gone, and our capital rendered uninhabitable for years. Our legislators would have died in numbers sufficient to precipitate a constitutional crisis. If the president were killed, the vice president might still be alive in his secure location, along with bureaucrats sufficient to keep the wheels of government turning (barely) in a crisis-ridden and...

President George W Bush's newly released document, The National Security Strategy for the United States of America, issued on September 20, declared in no uncertain terms that the doctrine of deterrence - the bedrock of superpower relations during the Cold War years - is history. Instead, the dual doctrines of "preemption" and "proactive counterproliferation" will guide America's national security policy (rogue states, your time is up). The North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be expanded to the hilt (Russia beware), and the People's Republic of China will be negotiated with on adjustments in its policy of political pluralism, human rights and,...

NY TIMES SELF-PARODY WATCH. From Tuesday's editorial page:"During the Truman administration, some strategists suggested attacking the Soviet Union while it was still militarily weak to prevent the rise of a nuclear-armed Communist superpower. Wiser heads prevailed, and for the next 40 years America's reliance on a strategy of deterrence preserved an uneasy but durable peace." Yeah, it's great that millions of people got to live under Soviet tyranny, die in gulags, and boil their shoes for soup for four decades while the rest of us in the West did duck-and-cover drills. Thank Christ the United States didn't swagger in there...

What will deter a Saddam Hussein or an Osama bin Laden from using chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons? he Iranians are apoplectic. The New York Times is indignant. The Arms Control Association is in a dither. And the Russians and the Chinese are demanding answers. What has gotten so many parties riled up? Why, the leak of portions of the Bush administration's highly classified Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), of course. Most of the anger has centered upon the allegation that the United States is developing contingency plans for using nuclear weapons against seven states — China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea,...